Hard x-ray quantitative non-interferometric phase-contrast microscopy

We report the results of quantitative phase-contrast imaging experiments using synchrotron radiation, in-line imaging geometry and a non-interferometric phase retrieval technique. This quantitative imaging method is fast, simple, robust, does not require sophisticated x-ray optical elements and can potentially provide submicron spatial resolution over a field of view of the order of centimetres. In the present experiment a spatial resolution of approximately 0.8 mu m has been achieved in images of a polystyrene sphere using 19.6 keV x-rays. We demonstrate that appropriate processing of phase-contrast images obtained in the in-line geometry can reveal important new information about the internal structure of weakly absorbing organic samples. We believe that this technique will also be useful in phase-contrast tomography.